Ghana: National Job Summit Launched in Accra

A National Job Summit, to be organised by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, and under the auspices of the President, John Dramani Mahama, has been launched in Accra.

A key highlight of the Summit, which comes off on the 3rd and 4th of September, this year, will be the launch by President Mahama of the National Employment Policy (NEP)--a document that gives strategic direction for job creation and also spells out the sectoral linkages for effective and efficient co-ordination of job opportunities for all Ghanaians.

The Summit will serve as a platform for interaction among stakeholders in the employment sector and also help in devising good strategies for job creation in the country to help achieve Ghana's goal of reaching full employment by 2030.

It will engage and create high-level collaborations with the relevant stakeholders, think-tanks and social partners to address technically challenging problems in the area of job creation, explore avenues of job creation at the national, regional and international levels and to generate ideas that will inform government policy direction in job creation.

Experts in various industries will converge at the Summit where the opportunity will be provided for certain key businesses to exhibit their sustainable business ideas in job creation.

The focus of the Summit will be on two core areas for the creation of productive and remunerative employment which include agriculture, industry, services education/skills development and training, and governance, as well as direct interventions.

Renowned resource persons have been scheduled to deliver technical papers while presentations will focus on topics such as 'Placing Employment at the Centre of a Sustainable National Development Agenda;' 'Experiences on the Implementation of Employment Policies;' 'Linking the Productive Sectors for Job Creation (Agriculture, Service and Manufacturing);' 'Bridging the Gap between Skills Demand & Supply through Technical, Vocational and Training (TVET) & Apprenticeship;' and 'Harnessing the Opportunities in Labour Migration and the Maritime Sector.'

The other topics are 'Information & Communication Technology as a catalyst for job creation;' 'The Role of Green Jobs in Economic Development;' and 'Exploiting Natural Resources to Boost Economic Development.'

Alongside the Summit will be an exhibition on Sustaining Competitive and Responses Enterprises (SCORE) Project while the Director-General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Mr Guy Ryder, will be in attendance to showcase some of the key activities of some Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) under ILO support. The National Vocational Training Institute (NVTI) has also been earmarked to showcase some of the skills development initiatives in job creation.

About five hundred and fifty participants, local and foreign, will attend the two-day Summit on the theme: 'Inclusive Growth through the Creation of Productive Employment and Decent Work for all Ghanaians.'

Addressing the media in at the launch, yesterday, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, noted that solutions to the youth unemployment crisis had become more difficult to find and measures at dealing with it more time-consuming to implement.

Hon. Iddrisu said unemployment was a global challenge that posed a security threat to both governments and businesses.

He said with the emerging issues of globalisation, advancement in technology and mobility of workforce, there was the need for a multi-disciplinary approach that required emphasis on stimulating the industrial and economic development of the country.

He said there was, therefore, the need to create sustainable jobs, irrespective of whether formal or informal, post-basic or tertiary and that, he said, required that people should be equipped with employable skills by which they could access labour or be self-employed.

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